Where Earth Meets Sky (55 page)

Bombay, India, 1924

Lily sat on the veranda at the back of the bungalow, smiling across the garden at the sight of a slim Indian girl dressed in a deep crimson sari, leading a little European boy across the shady strip of grass between the flower beds. The boy’s grey eyes were fixed solemnly on his feet as he accompanied his
ayah
with his first tottering steps.

‘I will sit here for half an hour or so, Lakshmi,’ Lily called to the girl. She always made a point of calling her by her name, not just
ayah
, the way so many of the British women did in that imperious way. ‘I shall take a little while to write my letter, and then he can come to me.’

‘Yes, Memsahib.’ The girl smiled shyly. She seemed almost always on the point of giggling whenever addressed, showing a row of strong, widely spaced teeth, and Lily liked her for her happy disposition.

She sat looking out for a moment, watching a clutter of crows wrangling around the birdbath, a little stone pool of water which the
mali
kept topped up. Somewhere nearby there were parrots in the trees. It was very hot and for a few moments Lily sat fanning herself with a few sheets of writing paper before opening the ink bottle and settling down to write.

Mussoorie, India, 1924

‘We should be able to see the mountains today – although it’s hard to tell with this cloud,’ Lily said.

She and Susan were toiling up the steep path to Gun Hill, both dressed in light frocks, for although they were in the mountains it was still the hottest time of the year. The monsoon rains were due to arrive at any time.

‘Phew – I need to get in better condition,’ Susan said, pausing on the path, close to a small Hindu shrine which had been cut into the rock since they were last here, containing a small, stumpy Siva
lingam
draped with marigolds.

‘Does it upset you, being here?’ Lily asked anxiously. They were not all that far from Zinnias, the house Susan and Charles Fairford had rented for those weeks in 1910.

Susan smiled wistfully, wiping her forehead with her handkerchief. Her face, if anything, was even more attractive now she was older. Though more lined, it was more giving, not like the closed young woman she had been.

‘Not upset, no. It feels very strange, and brings it all back . . . So much of it, especially before the war, feels so very long ago. And, of course, we weren’t here with Cozzy . . .’

Her eyes filled and she looked away. Lily felt her own throat ache with tears. There was no need for either of them to say any more.

They walked on and reached the top, catching a sight of the great peaks of Banderpunch, Pithwara and the Gangotri in bright sunlight, though a pall of deep mauve cloud was massing to obscure its light. They were buffeted by sudden powerful gusts of wind.

‘It’s changing fast,’ Lily said, shading her eyes. ‘The rain’s coming.’

‘It’s astonishing, isn’t it?’ Susan said. She sighed. ‘I so loathed living here, yet it’s wonderful to be back.’

She had docked in Bombay the week before, while the plains were gripped by the great heat, and travelled with Lily, Sam and little Edward, the
ayah
and servants, first by rail to Dehra Dun, then road, up to this simple bungalow in Mussoorie.

After a silence, while they watched the cloud edge its way over, blanketing the high Himalaya, Susan turned to her.

‘It must be strange for you too?’

‘Yes – it is a little bit,’ Lily said.

Lily had never told Susan all that had happened to her in Mussoorie, not about the way she had let Ewan McBride use her, or about little Victoria. It felt too private and shameful. Sam was the only person she had told, or would ever tell about all that. The first afternoon after they arrived in Mussoorie, she slipped out while the others were resting, delighting in being in the lovely mountain town again, but with a mission that she wanted to fulfil on her own. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable, wondering if there were people still living here who would remember her, and she pulled the brim of her straw hat well down.

She walked towards the beginning of the Camel’s Back Road feeling more and more on edge as the McBrides’ bungalow came into view. Her heart pounded at the recollection of how she had had to escape with Jane Brown that night, of the desperation of those days imprisoned inside. The house did not look the same, though. It was painted yellow now, and there were many more pots of flowers in the front garden. She sensed already this was no longer a house belonging to Dr McBride. They must have gone.

Even so, she did not have the courage to knock at that door. Instead, she called at the next house, where she was greeted by a young, slender servant who cocked his head in an enquiring way.

‘This bungalow next door,’ she pointed, ‘whose house is it?’

‘That is house of Mr Jenkins,’ he said.

‘Ah. Not Dr McBride, then?’

This was met with another small inclination of the head. He probably knew nothing about the former occupants, Lily thought, but in case, she asked, ‘Where is Dr McBride?’

‘He is dead, long time,’ the young man said. ‘Wife die, then he die soon after.’

Lily was surprised. ‘You knew him?’

He nodded. ‘I have been here a long time.’

Lily dimly remembered a child of the servants who worked in this house when she was here before and guessed this must be the same boy.

‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him. ‘You have been very helpful.’

She walked away, feeling released. She could walk the streets of the town without coming face to face with the doctor. That part of her past would not come back to pursue her. She revelled in being back, walking the sloping streets, seeing the houses perched along the edge of the hills, all the school children, the bazaars and the awesome sights of the mountains which met her at every turn. It was like a homecoming.

‘You seem so very happy,’ Susan said, as they walked back down the path. It became easier to talk about personal things, out here in the hills.

‘Yes.’ Lily darted a smile at her. ‘I am. Very. Even though things are irregular. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to marry properly . . .’

‘People assume you’re married, I suppose?’ Susan instinctively lowered her voice, even though there was no one else around. The sky was fast turning a threatening, inky colour and they walked faster.

‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘There might be a divorce. Helen, Sam’s wife, is not keen and we’ll have to wait for a time. And of course we’re a family.’ She blushed. ‘I’m not young, and I’d still like one more child . . .’ For Susan, the old Susan, the whole situation would have seemed a deep disgrace. But Susan had suffered and changed. And, Lily realized, she and Sam were of the same spirit: they were adventurers. He longed to escape from what he felt to be stifling suburban life, and Lily was happy outside social convention so long as she could be with him and with her boy. So much in her life had been irregular right from the start, far more than Susan really knew, that she simply lived with it and rejoiced in finding love.

‘No one has said anything to us,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘But you are not staying in a house that is in the least respectable!’

‘Oh,’ Susan smiled wanly. ‘I think I can learn to live with it.’

‘And you? Tell me more about him.’ ‘Him’ was someone who had been given a faint but increasing mention in Susan’s letters.

‘Well, he’s gentle and kind, not wealthy but comfortable enough. His name is Edmund Reardon and he’s an antiquarian bookseller, in Brighton . . .’ She looked at Lily and laughed wholeheartedly. ‘You see, I should really rather like a quiet suburban life, dear, just for a change. I’ve had more than enough of loss and change and shifting from place to place carrying my garden about in flowerpots!’

‘And is he a bachelor?’

‘A widower,’ Susan said. Lily could hear the affection in her voice as she talked about him. ‘He’s ten years my senior and his wife died of TB, very sadly – not so very long after they were married. There’s one grown-up son. And Edmund is just utterly, utterly sweet, Lily . . .’ She looked bashfully at her friend and both of them laughed.

Lily dared to say, ‘You know, there was a time when I thought you might find some happiness with the major – Piers Larstonbury.’

‘Oh no! Nice fellow, of course, but even if I’d been keen, I don’t think he’ll ever leave that dreadful wife of his, even if she does run rings round him. And now he and Mr Marks and the rest of the team are so embroiled at Brooklands building all these motors, I should never have seen anything of him anyway!’

Lily wondered whether Susan was right, whether Piers would in the end have ever left Virginia for her. All she could feel for him now, though, was a tender gratitude for his sorrow and generosity when she told him her true feelings for Sam.

‘I can’t keep you here if your heart is somewhere else,’ he said, his face pale with shock and hurt. ‘But I shall never forget you, Lily. You’re a beautiful woman and he’s the luckiest man alive.’ He was a gentleman, Piers Larstonbury, a kind and rather lonely one.

Susan was telling Lily about her gentle courtship with Edmund Reardon when the first drops began to come down. They were close to the bottom of the zigzag path from Gun Hill and the sky was creaking with thunder, the first drops seeming like the overspill from a vast store of water just waiting to release itself.

‘Oh, here it comes!’ Lily cried. It was impossible not to feel a sense of exaltation at the beginning of the monsoon, so that the thought of a drenching was glorious after all the dust and heat. As they hurried along the Mall, the vendors were quickly pulling scraps of tarpaulin over their wares and everyone who had somewhere to go was running for cover, putting up umbrellas as they did so.

And then down it came, the water seeming to gush from the sky in a great, hissing, splashing fall of giant drops which were soon bouncing from awnings and roofs, pouring out from the end of guttering, forming a stream which ran down the sloping streets. Children ran out in it, laughing and catching handfuls of water, the cows took cover under overhanging roofs and everyone seemed to be smiling and shrieking and running or just standing, turning their faces up to catch its cool rush on their cheeks and letting it soak all through their clothing. By the time Lily and Susan reached the gate of the bungalow they were wading, ankle-deep in water.

‘Wait for me!’ Sam was striding along the road, laughing as water streamed down his hair.

Lily opened the door and ushered Susan inside as Sam reached them, gasping.

‘I was looking for you, dear – where’ve you been?’

‘Gun Hill . . .’

She was about to step into the house after Susan, but he caught her hand and they stood for a moment in the little front garden with their hands linked, letting the rain come down and down over them, drinking it in like flowers and loving it.